Weekly TV Thoughts: 02/22 - 02/28

TNT is showing The Lord of the Rings right now, which is surefire way for me to waste away an entire day. Its right up there with Band of Brothers on History.

-Heroes, Monday: While I don't plan to abandon this show anytime soon, my patience is wearing thin with Heroes. This episode wasn't that bad; there was a lot of good exposition and the black-and-white flashback scene were a nice call back to Company Man, easily one of the best episodes to date. But I don't think we learned anything Earth-shatteringly new. HRG is a double (or is it triple) agent, working his own agenda while working with The Hunter. Shocker. They need to reassemble all the characters and get them fighting toward a single goal. Of course, that goal now appears to be saving New York, err... Washington, D.C. from annihilation. Good thing no one's currently occupying Isaac's loft, otherwise where else would Parkman use his as-of-yet-unexplained new ability to paint the future? It does sadden me, however, that they can't seem to come up with a better storyline than "save a city from destruction." I'll keep watching, but I really don't know why.

-24, Monday: See, I told you the blonde FBI chick was a mole. I just didn't think she'd be a mole in tandem with Hillinger. Too bad she fell for Sean's shoot-the-girl-than-shoot-yourself-in-the-arm act. That one fools them every time. I really thought for a second there that Hillinger would get away, at least for an episode or two. But I didn't count one the extent of Chloe's digital kung fu. Hillinger is in custody, Dubaku is dead, all the names everyone working with Dubaku is exposed, and the coup in Sangala is being quelled. Looks like a short day for Jack Bauer and company, if it weren't for the imminant attack being planned on Washington right now. Looks like General Juma is going to go after the White House next, which should keep Jack busy for the next 14 hours or so. I also get the sense that they've introduced the President's daughter for the sole purpose of her getting kidnapped somewhere down the line. I can see it going down something like this: Juma threatens the White House, everyone is evacuated, the attack is averted, Juma then captures the First Daughter because she defies her mother's orders and goes off and does something on her own without any Secret Service protection. I'd like to think that they could use her for more than that, but I'm not banking on it.

-Lost, Wednesday: First, what's happening on the the island. We now have names for the two other people who were sitting in business class with the O6 and Ben- Caesar and Ilana. And while it looks like everyone else on the plane survived (clearly, Lapidus IS a really good pilot), these two are obviously going to be important. From the looks of it, they landed on the small satellite island, by the Hydra station. Did Lapidus manage to land the plane on the "runway" that Kate and Sawyer were forced to work on? Was the runway being built because the Others knew that the Ajira flight would eventually have to land there? The woman that left with Lapidus on the outrigger has to be Sun. I mean, who else would a)have something or someone to look for and b)even know that there IS something or someone else to look for? They head toward the main island, carrying some Ajira bottle waters, and land on the beach, looking for the old camp. But if that's the case, why wasn't Sun with Jack, Hurley, and Kate? Why was she left on the plane? And where's Sayid? According to Caesar, some people disappeared in the flash, while other didn't; who stayed and who was flashed away? This begs another question- the flash of light is associated with time travel; so have Jack, Hurley, and Kate been transported back in time while the rest of the plane, including Lapidus, Ben, and what looks like Sun, crashed on the island in "real time"? I have no idea. Oh, and the least surprising part of the episode- Locke's alive again. Or, at least he's not dead. He can interact with everyone and can eat food, so let's just assume that he's actually alive again. Okay, so now to off the island, when Locke turned the wheel and was sent to the Tunisian desert. We do we learn? We learn that Charles Widmore wants to help Locke because Locke is special and destined to lead the people on the island. This is odd, because Ben claims to want to do the exact same thing for the exact same reason, except that he and Widmore are also working against each other. It makes Locke seems like nothing more than a pawn in a much, much larger game. Nothing all that exciting in Locke's meeting with each of the O6 (though Hurley assuming that Locke was dead was funny). None of them want to go back, and they make that very clear to Locke (especially Jack and Kate; they REALLY cut down Locke). We do get some good info, like how Jack gets sent off the rails (Locke tells him that his father says, "hi"). We also see that Locke wanted to kill himself, but doesn't because Ben stops him. And then Ben kills Locke anyway, and makes it look like a suicide. I wonder whether killing Locke was his plan all along, or if he decided to do so only after hearing Locke's plan to go visit Ms. Hawking. Now that I've had some time to think about it, I think it's the latter. Why? Because Ms. Hawking thinks Locke committed suicide. Ben's working with Ms. Hawking, trying to bring the O6 back to the island, because that's what Locke was supposed to do. He got Locke to divulge his mission so HE could carry it out and get himself back to the island (since he wouldn't have been included if Locke was running the show). It was only after he assumed Locke's role that he learned that he needed to bring Locke's body back with them. He clearly didn't realize the implications of doing so (ie- that Locke would come back to life on the island), otherwise he might not have murdered him. That should make for an interesting meeting once Ben awakes on the island.

-Hackers, Thursday: I can't believe I watched this movie. Again. It was made in 1994, released in 1995. Is that really how people thought computers worked 15 years ago (man, I feel like I've made this observation before). I think War Games, made back in 1983, gave a more accurate depiciton of computers than Hackers did. That said, check out the cast list to this movie; there are a ton of actors that you'd recognize now from other, less crappy, work, outside of just Angelina Jolie.

-Battlestar Galactica, Friday: So, I thought we'd actually get some answers about Starbuck in this episode. Turns out, we didn't. At least, not on the surface. While nothing specific was revealed about Starbuck, the implications were very heavy. The popular interwebs theory is that Starbuck is a hybrid, and that her father is Daniel, the missing 7th Cylon model that Cavil destoryed. Ellen said that Daniel was an artist, and from what we saw in this episode, Starbuck's father was a piano player (it was pretty clear that all the piano scenes were just in Starbuck's head). Also, Hera, a known hybrid, drew the melody to All Along the Watchtower, which happens to be the song Starbuck played as a kid, taught to her by her dad, and the song that triggered the Final Five (err, Four) to realize who they really were. So I think Starbuck's a hybrid, the first hybrid, and that when we get the specific answers about her, we'll get specific answers about humanity as a whole (ie- the end of the series). Speaking of Hera, its good to see that Boomer is just straight up evil. Clearly, it was the plan all along for her to "escape" with Ellen, rejoin the fleet, exploit her relationship with Tyrol, disguise herself as Athena, kidnap Hera, steal a raptor, and return to Cavil's baseship. It seems that Roslin's health is tied to her proximity to Hera; I don't think she's long for this world anyway. It will also be interesting to see what happens to Tyrol, since he was responsible for Sharon getting out of the brig and thus complicit in the kidnapping of Hera. It will also be interesting to see what happens to Galactica itself. Clearly its falling apart and it won't last much longer, but what happens when they do have to abandon Galactica? Roslin's going to die, and Galactica is on its last legs; can Adama go on without his two loves? With only 4 hours of the show left, I have no idea how they'll cram everything they need to say into the final episodes. But I can't wait to see it.

Okay, back to The Lord of the Rings.